


All the Time in the World

by skywalkersamidala



Category: Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Post-Movie(s), UNLESS THIS REALLY DOES END UP HAPPENING IN A FUTURE MOVIE WHO KNOWS, steve vs. modern technology, teeny bit of angst but mostly fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 18:23:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11132283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skywalkersamidala/pseuds/skywalkersamidala
Summary: Steve stared blankly at the date for several long moments. 2017? That couldn’t be right, it was 1918. Or maybe 1919 if he had indeed been in a coma for six months. But the plane, the explosion—that had all been November 1918. Surely—surely it must be a misprint. It couldn’t be 2017, that was impossible.





	All the Time in the World

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic that isn't Anakin/Padme or even Star Wars, this is really exciting u guys :DD anyway I saw Wonder Woman about 24 hours ago and it destroyed me so I had to whip out this quick happy fix-it fic. I don't know ANYTHING about DC, I haven't seen any of the other movies or read the comics or anything, I'm going solely based off my single viewing of Wonder Woman (2017) here so if any harder-core DC fans spot some glaring errors I'm so sorry lmao

Steve jolted awake and had a moment of panic as he tried to think of some way to get off the exploding plane. But a split second later his brow furrowed as he saw that he wasn’t on the plane at all; he was in a room. A bedroom, apparently, since he was sitting up in a bed. How had he gotten here? He frantically racked his brain, trying to remember. He remembered firing the gun, he remembered a deafening explosion and a blinding flash of light and then…nothing.

He remembered knowing he was about to die, knowing the explosion would kill him in an instant, but…apparently he hadn’t died? Maybe he’d just blacked out and Diana had somehow rescued him from the plane? But then where was she now? Had she not cared enough to stay and make sure he was all right? Steve’s heart gave a lurch as that possibility occurred. But no, she did care about him. She did. She was probably just off fighting the war and saving the day.

The war. Steve jumped out of bed and ran over to the window, hoping to be able to see some visual clue as to what the state of the war was. But then he froze and stared, utter confusion overwhelming him.

The things driving on the road were definitely cars, but unlike any he’d ever seen before, much smaller and sleeker and _faster_ than the ones he was used to. And the people walking around were wearing extremely bizarre clothing; it barely covered _any_ skin. Steve felt himself blushing as he saw a woman walk by wearing shorts that only went down to her mid-thighs and a shirt that left most of her stomach exposed.

He looked down at his own clothes and frowned. He was wearing a T-shirt and a strange pair of soft gray pants with a stretchy waistband. Mystified, he turned away from the window and examined the room more thoroughly. It was simply furnished with a bed, dresser, and a desk with a large flat rectangle on it. Steve went over to investigate and discovered that the rectangle could be opened up until it formed a right angle, and inside there was a…typewriter? There were keys with letters, but other than that it didn’t look anything like a typewriter. He hesitantly pressed a few of the letters, but nothing happened. Above the keys was a flat, shiny black surface. Steve tried poking that too, to no avail.

He abandoned the puzzling device and went over to the bedside table, on which there was a lamp and another flat rectangle, though this one was much smaller than the one on the desk. It didn’t have any typewriter keys either, but the shiny black surface did resemble the top half of the desk device. Steve tried pressing a button on top of the rectangle, and he gasped in surprise when the shiny black surface lit up.

He stared at it, baffled. At the top there were numbers reading 12:27. Was this some sort of watch? He couldn’t hear any ticking; he held it up to his ear and shook it a little, to no effect. When Steve looked back at the object it had turned black again, so he pressed the button again to make it light up a second time. This time he saw that underneath the time was text reading “Friday, May 19”.

Hang on. May? But—but it was November. Steve felt his heart speeding up a little. Had he been in a coma for six months? And he still didn’t have any clue where he was.

Suddenly, the rectangle started vibrating in his hand and making a loud buzzing noise, and Steve yelped and dropped it. Warily, he knelt down and stared at it as it buzzed. The black surface was still lit up, but it looked different now. There was a string of numbers at the top, and at the bottom were two circles, one red and one green. The red one said “decline” underneath and the green “accept.” In the center of each circle was a symbol that seemed to resemble a telephone receiver.

Steve carefully reached out to trace his finger over the green circle, but then suddenly a French-accented voice was yelling, “Steve? Hello? Trevor, you there?”

He nearly jumped out of his skin and looked frantically around the room before he realized the voice was coming from inside the rectangle. He took a deep breath, then leaned down towards it and said, “Uh, hello?”

“Steve!” the voice said loudly, making him wince. “Where the hell are you?”

“What?”

“You were supposed to be here hours ago, I’ve been trying to reach you all morning!”

“Be where?” Steve said, utterly confused.

“At the _office._ Where you _work.”_ The man cursed under his breath. “What is the matter with you, are you hungover or something?”

“No,” Steve replied, because he may have had no idea what was going on but he _was_ confident he wasn’t hungover.

“Are you sick?”

“Um…yeah,” said Steve, seizing on the excuse with relief. He needed to make this man leave him alone somehow. “Yeah, I’m pretty sick.”

The man sighed. _“Merde_ , you could have called to tell us that this morning instead of skipping work without any explanation. See you Monday.”

The rectangle’s appearance changed again, now reading “call ended.” So it must be a telephone somehow, but it was also a watch? Steve shook his head in bewilderment, stood back up, and inched out of the room, not wanting the man’s voice to come back and start yelling at him.

He cautiously pushed the door open and stepped out into what appeared to be a living room. “Hello?” he called. “Is anyone here?”

Silence. Steve tried a few more times but still got no reply, so he figured he must be on his own. He scoured the rest of the apartment from top to bottom, marveling at the kitchen and bathroom appliances which looked much more advanced and confusing than the ones he was used to.

He ended up back in the living room and spared the large flat rectangle on the wall only a passing glance (why were there so many flat rectangles in this place?) before flopping down onto the couch, feeling a headache coming on. Where the hell was he? Why were there so many strange objects here? Why did the cars look funny and the people dress oddly? Who was that French man who’d spoken to him through the telephone/watch? Why was he the only person here? And _where_ was Diana?

And then his gaze fell upon the coffee table and his heart leapt in excitement: there was a newspaper lying there. Maybe at last Steve would be able to figure out what was going on.

He reached out and grabbed it. The top read _Le Monde;_ he didn’t recognize that newspaper but as he glanced at the front page and saw it was all in French, he realized he must be in France somewhere. That might help to explain the French man as well. Steve thought back to the bits of French he’d learned during the war and skimmed the top of the page, looking for the date. There: _vendredi 19 mai 2017._ Friday, May 19th, 2017.

Wait.

2017?

Steve stared blankly at the date for several long moments. 2017? That couldn’t be right, it was 1918. Or maybe 1919 if he had indeed been in a coma for six months. But the plane, the explosion—that had all been November 1918. Surely—surely it must be a misprint. It couldn’t be 2017, that was _impossible._

He frantically flipped through the rest of the pages, desperate to find something, _anything_ that looked familiar. But it was all names he didn’t recognize, world leaders he’d never heard of, advertisements that didn’t make any sense to him.

The room suddenly felt too small, and Steve’s breathing was too quick and shallow. He needed to get out of there, he needed to go somewhere else, _anywhere_ else. He jumped to his feet and ran over to the door that had led out into a hallway when he’d opened it while exploring the apartment, and he dashed outside without even bothering to find a pair of shoes to wear. He raced down the hall, and when he turned the corner he nearly smacked right into a woman carrying a cup of something in her hand.

“Oh! _Bonjour,_ Steve,” she said, looking startled. Then she said something else in French that Steve couldn’t quite translate, though he thought he caught the words “hurry” and “morning.”

 _“Je ne parle pas bien le français,”_ Steve replied. Then he demanded in English, “How do you know me?”

She frowned at him. “We have been neighbors for years,” she said, also switching to English. “Are you all right, Steve? Your French was impeccable the last time I saw you.”

Steve ignored the last bit. “How many years?”

She furrowed her brow. “I do not know, quite a few.”

“When did I move in? Or was I already here when you moved in?”

“I…I cannot remember,” she confessed, looking puzzled. “That is odd…”

Steve felt his panic increasing, and without another word he continued hurrying down the hallway, leaving the woman staring bemusedly after him. Eventually he found a flight of stairs and went down until he reached the bottom, at which point he made a beeline for an outside door and stepped out into the street, blinking in the sunlight.

He looked up and down the street, but he didn’t recognize a single thing about his surroundings. He was starting to attract looks from passersby thanks to his frazzled appearance and lack of shoes, but he hardly even noticed. _“Excusez-moi, parlez-vous anglais?”_ he asked a passing woman. The woman shook her head and kept walking, speeding up her pace and glancing suspiciously back at him.

Steve tried a few more people, and finally a young man took pity on him and asked if he needed directions. “What city is this?” Steve said.

The man gave him a weird look. “Paris.”

Paris…but Steve had been to Paris before and it didn’t look anything like this. Maybe he was just in a different part he hadn’t been to before? He pushed that thought aside and said, “What’s going on with the war?”

“What war?”

“The—the _war._ The war to end all wars,” Steve said impatiently. “Started in 1914, dragged on for years after that?”

“Ah, you mean the First World War?” the man said, starting to back away slightly. “That ended almost one hundred years ago.”

_“What?”_

“Good day, sir,” the man said quickly and he hurried off, leaving Steve standing alone in the middle of the sidewalk and trying to calm his rising panic.

How could this be? How could he be one hundred years in the future? Was he dreaming? Or maybe he really _had_ died on the plane and this was heaven? Then again, it didn’t seem particularly like a paradise…maybe it was purgatory, then. Steve didn’t _think_ he’d done anything to warrant hell, but maybe God wasn’t very forgiving about unscrupulous actions done during wartime for the good of the cause.

He wandered aimlessly through the streets, desperately trying to come up with some logical conclusion about what was going on, but he just couldn’t. Eventually he came upon a large glass pyramid; he had to admit it was impressive-looking even as freaked out as he was. Steve started walking towards it to get a better look, and he was almost there when someone bumped into him.

He let out a startled _oof._ Someone immediately started apologizing in French, and when Steve turned to look, his heart almost stopped.

Her apologies died in her throat as their eyes met, and her face drained of color. Steve, though—Steve was overwhelmed with joy, thinking that _finally_ something was going right in this horrible day. “Diana!” he exclaimed, beaming at her. “Thank _God_ you’re here, something really weird is going on and I have no idea—”

But he trailed off as she keeled over in a dead faint.

“Diana!” Steve shouted in alarm, dropping to his knees beside her. He quickly reached for her wrist, sighing in relief when he felt a pulse. He started shaking her awake. “Diana, are you all right? Wake up, wake up, please…”

They’d drawn a crowd and he heard people asking if she needed an ambulance, but he ignored them, too focused on Diana. Could he pick her up and carry her away from all these prying eyes and wait for her to wake up? Steve spent a couple minutes trying, but apparently he was _not_ strong enough to pick up an Amazonian warrior. So instead he returned to trying to wake her. “Diana,” he said loudly, lightly hitting her cheek. “Diana, wake up!”

At last her eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright, staring at him. “Steve…” she breathed, looking like she’d seen a ghost.

Steve smiled at her. “Yeah, it’s me. I’ve been wondering where you were all day, I’m so glad I found you.”

Diana was shaking her head, tears welling up in her eyes. “You’re—you’re not real, this is a dream again, you’re not really here—”

“What? Of course I’m here,” Steve said, bewildered. He took her hand and laid it on his chest, right over his heart so she could feel it beating. “See? Very real, very here.”

But then, to his consternation, Diana burst into tears. “Diana?” Steve asked. “What’s wrong? Please don’t cry, look, I’m here, everything’s all right.”

She took a minute to get her sobs under control, then took a few deep, shuddering breaths. “Steve, it—it is _impossible_ for you to be here right now,” she said in a trembling voice.

“Why? What do you mean?”

Diana glanced around at all the people staring at them. “Can we talk somewhere private?” she asked him.

“Sure,” Steve said, standing up and instinctively reaching out to help her up despite knowing she didn’t actually need it. She stared at his hand for a second and slowly reached out to take it, eyes widening when she felt that it was indeed solid. As if she’d expected her hand to go right through his when they touched.

She hauled herself up and said, “My apartment is nearby.”

“Okay.”

Steve followed her down a few blocks, neither saying a word. He had to admit, this wasn’t exactly how he’d been expecting their reunion to go. The last thing he’d said to her was that he loved her, and he _hoped_ she would say it back now that they were together again…well, he supposed they hadn’t actually known each other for very long even though it felt like a lifetime to him. Maybe she thought it was too soon, maybe she wasn’t ready to say it back. Maybe she never would be. Maybe she only cared about him as a friend, not romantically.

Steve gnawed anxiously on his lip as he followed her into a building and up the elevator a few floors, then down a hallway and into a beautiful apartment decorated with a mixture of sleek furniture and things that reminded him of Themyscira. His initial elation at seeing her was starting to be replaced by worry. Worry that she didn’t return his feelings, worry about her bizarre reaction to seeing him, worry about what she’d said about it being _impossible_ for him to be there.

Diana set her bag down on the coffee table and sat on one of the sofas, beckoning for Steve to sit beside her. He did so, then looked at her expectantly. “So why is it impossible for me to be here?” he asked promptly.

Diana closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again and looked at him. “Steve, you—you died ninety-nine years ago,” she said bluntly.

Steve gaped at her. _“What?”_

“It was that night in Belgium when I fought Ares,” she said softly. “You took the plane so that you could blow up the explosives far away from everyone else. You sacrificed yourself to save them all.”

“Yes, I remember that, but—I _died?”_ Steve said incredulously.

Diana nodded. “I saw the plane explode. There was no way you could have survived.”

Steve’s head was spinning, and he leaned back against the couch to stare at the ceiling. “But I’m not dead, I’m here,” he said. “I’m here and I’m clearly not dead. And what do you mean, ninety-nine years ago?” But then he remembered. “Some guy on the street said the war was a hundred years ago and I found a newspaper that said it was the year 2017?”

“It’s true,” Diana said. “It’s the year 2017. The armistice was signed on November eleventh, 1918, and that’s when the war ended. You died the day before that.”

Steve was quiet for so long that eventually she asked, “How much do you remember? How did you get here?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “I remember being in the plane, I remember getting ready to pull the trigger and set off the explosives. I remember I was thinking of you. I hoped you’d make it out all right, and…and I wished that we had more time together, to do all the things people do during peacetime. I wanted to wake up with you and eat breakfast and read the paper and go to work, maybe even the getting married and making babies and growing old together part too.” Steve smiled sadly, and he thought Diana’s eyes looked damp.

“Then what happened?” she said in a choked voice.

“Then I pulled the trigger and everything went black. And the next thing I remember is waking up this morning in a strange bedroom, in the year 2017 apparently.” He recounted his morning to her, ending with when they’d bumped into each other.

Diana mulled over his tale for a long time once he’d finished. “But I don’t _understand,”_ she said. “How did this happen? How did you get here?”

Steve shrugged helplessly, and just then there was a boom of thunder and a flash of lightning outside. They both jumped and turned to look out the window. It had been perfectly sunny before, and indeed the skies were overcast for only a split second before clearing again. “That was weird,” Steve muttered. Then he noticed Diana frowning and bending over to pick something up. “What’s that?”

She held up a folded piece of paper. “It appeared with the thunder,” she murmured, looking thoughtful. “I wonder…”

Steve watched in confusion as she unfolded the note and read it. Diana inhaled softly and stared down at it for several minutes, tears springing to her eyes once again and a smile slowly growing on her face. “It was Zeus,” she said at last. “He—he brought you back.”

 _Zeus?_ “Let me see the note,” he said, and she passed it over.

_I created mankind and was unable to protect them, but you have done so admirably for a hundred years. Now I repay your selflessness with something taken from you too soon. But a word of warning: he will live only as long as is natural for mortals, and I will not be able to bring him back a second time. Thank you, my daughter._

Steve read the words several times, trying to let them sink in. “How do you know this is from Zeus?” he asked finally.

“Well, the writer of the note says he created mankind and that’s obviously Zeus.”

“Oh.” Then he frowned. “Why does he call you his daughter? Is that just kind of a general term of address since he created the Amazons too, or—”

“No,” Diana interrupted. “Zeus is my father.”

“You mean metaphorically?”

“No. Literally.”

Steve blinked rapidly several times. “But I thought—what about that whole story with the clay?”

“My mother did not tell me the whole truth when I was young,” Diana replied, pursing her lips. “Ares told me during the battle that day. Zeus created the Godkiller to destroy him, but the Godkiller wasn’t the sword. It was me. At first I resented my mother for lying to me all those years, but now I understand why she didn’t want me to know. She was trying to protect me from my destiny.”

Steve struggled to process that information. Diana having two biological parents should’ve been easier to comprehend than her being formed from clay and magically given life, but…not when one of those parents was a _god._ “So you’re a god and I’m back from the dead,” he said. “That’s just great.”

Diana laughed, and the sound made his heart swoop. “Demigod, technically,” she corrected. “But I suppose we do make quite a pair.”

Steve smiled back, feeling warm all over from the way she referred to them as a pair. But his smile faded as he looked back down at the note again. “When he says that I’ll live as long as is natural for mortals…does that mean you won’t?” he asked, almost not wanting to hear the answer.

Diana’s smile slipped too. “Yes. I am immortal,” she said. “Well, I believe I can be killed in battle, but I do not age.”

“So that’s why you look the same after a hundred years,” Steve said slowly, mind working overtime to digest this. And then something else finally occurred to him. “Wait, if it’s been a hundred years, that means—that means my parents, Sameer, Charlie, the Chief, Etta, every single person I ever knew, they’re—they’re all—”

He couldn’t get the last word out, but Diana knew. “Yes,” she said quietly.

Steve took a shaky breath, and then he started to cry. He’d been thrown back into the world a hundred years after he’d left it, and now every single person he knew was dead. He was the only one left. He was alone.

But then he felt Diana wrap her arms around him. “Not all of them. I’m still here,” she said. “You still have me, Steve.”

As she spoke, he realized that she’d seen it all. She’d been there to witness their friends die one by one. “How did you do it?” he asked, voice still wobbly. “How did you live for this long and deal with losing everyone?”

Diana gave a humorless laugh. “I didn’t,” she said. “I still think about all of them every single day, even after so many decades. I still miss them, it still hurts.” They sat quietly in their embrace for a while before she spoke again. “But now…now I’m not alone anymore. Now I have you.”

Steve pulled back slightly to look at her; she was looking at him with such openness and vulnerability. It reminded him of the way she used to look back then, whereas now even after having only being reunited for a little while, he could already tell that she was so much sadder and more jaded than that naïve, hopeful warrior he’d first met on Themyscira.

“Steve,” she said, suddenly looking nervous. “Now that—now that I know you’re really real and I’m not just dreaming, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?” Steve asked, feeling nervous himself now.

Diana licked her lips. “That day, the last thing you ever said to me—the last thing you ever said to me was that you loved me. And—and you ran off before I had the chance to say it back.”

Steve flushed. “It’s okay, I wasn’t expecting you to—I mean, I understand if you don’t feel the same way, especially if a hundred years have passed for you—”

“I love you,” she said, making him stutter to a halt. She took his hands and gave him a tearful smile. “Steve, I—I’ve loved you for ninety-nine years. I loved you that day when I never got to say it back, and I’ve loved you every single day since then. I thought about everyone, all our friends, but I thought about you the most. I thought you were lost to me forever, and—and now you’re _here_ and you’re alive and you’re going to live out the rest of your life and _I love you.”_

“W-wow,” Steve stammered, hardly able to believe his ears. “I-I love you too. Diana, I love you.”

“I love you,” she repeated, and then their lips were meeting in a kiss. Steve smiled against her mouth, remembering all the kisses they’d shared that night in Veld, a night which felt like last night to him but ninety-nine years ago to her. Those kisses had been hesitant, uncertain, a little desperate, like they knew they might not get another chance. But this kiss was slow and tender and content, as if they had all the time in the world. Because now, suddenly, after ninety-nine years, they did.

At last the kiss ended and they drew apart, smiling shyly at each other with their noses almost touching. “Diana, can we do all that stuff now? All the stuff we would’ve done after the war?” Steve said breathlessly.

“You mean the waking up and eating breakfast and reading the paper and going to work?” Diana said, smiling even wider.

“Yeah, all of that. But maybe not the getting married and making babies part quite yet, we’ll wait a while on those ones,” he joked, and she laughed. “And…not the growing old together part either, I guess.”

“Hey,” said Diana, reaching out to rest her hand on her cheek. “Don’t think about that yet. We have so many years before death will take you again, so many years to do all the things we never got the chance to do the first time.”

“But someday I’ll die and leave you alone again,” Steve said, realizing even as he spoke that that was what scared him: not his own death, but the thought of Diana being left behind again.

“Yes,” she said simply. “But by then we will have had so many happy years together, Steve. We’ll have had a whole life together. I’ll be all right without you. I’ll miss you, but I’ll be all right. It won’t hurt as much when I know you lived a long, full life instead of one that was cut short. I don’t care that this will come to an end someday too, I’m just grateful that we have the chance to be together.”

Steve felt himself relax, and he gave her another smile. She was right; even though their time together was finite, it was still long. They would have decades and decades. There was no point spoiling it by spending the whole time worrying about the inevitable future.

He wanted to say something else then, some sort of grand declaration of love maybe, but what he actually ended up saying was, “Would you mind if—would it be okay if I stayed here tonight? I don’t want to go back to that other place which I guess is my apartment. It’s creepy there. And lonely. Also, I’m not sure I’ll even be able to find it again.”

Diana chuckled and squeezed his hand. “Of course you can stay. You can—you can stay permanently, if you’d like. Not just tonight.”

Steve smiled at her, heart soaring. “I’d like that very much.” But then he frowned. “Unless—I mean, that’s not really proper, for us to be living together without being married. People will talk—”

Diana burst out laughing. “Oh, Steve, you have a lot of catching up to do,” she said through her giggles. “Things have changed. Society’s changed. Nowadays it’s perfectly acceptable for a couple to live together while unmarried, at least in most places.”

“Really?” Steve said, astonished.

“Mm-hmm. The world isn’t perfect, of course, there’s still war and prejudice and hate. But it’s better than it used to be, for the most part,” she said. “All people still aren’t equal, but they’re more equal than they were before.”

“Did women get the vote?”

“Oh yes, just a couple years after the war. Now they can do anything they want,” Diana said happily. Then she made a face. “Well, in theory, anyway. It doesn’t always work out in practice.”

Steve wanted to ask what she meant, but he had a million other questions pressing on his mind. How could he even begin to catch up on the last hundred years? “What am I wearing?” he said next.

She glanced at his outfit and raised an eyebrow. “Good question. What _are_ you wearing?”

“It’s just what I had on when I woke up this morning,” he said defensively. “And I was too freaked out about the newspaper saying it was 2017 to bother changing before I left the apartment.”

Diana grinned. “All right, well, that’s a shirt—”

“I know _that._ It’s just these weird pants.”

“Those are sweatpants.”

“Sweatpants,” said Steve, pulling at the fabric. “What’s the point of them?”

“The point? I don’t know, they’re just comfortable pants. People usually wear them to bed or for exercising or just lounging around the house.”

“Huh. They _are_ pretty comfortable,” he admitted. “Oh, and what are all these shiny black rectangles for? There were so many in my apartment.”

“That’s a TV. Television,” Diana said, looking where he was pointing. “You remember movies?”

“Yeah, I went to the cinema once or twice before the war.”

“Well, with TVs you can watch movies right here in your home.”

Steve gaped at her. “Are you serious? How did they figure out how to do that?”

“They’ve figured out how to do lots of things,” she said. She pulled a small flat rectangle from her pocket; it looked like the telephone/watch the French man’s voice had come out of that morning. “Like this. This is a cell phone. It’s a telephone, but it’s so small that you can fit it in your pocket and carry it everywhere, and it doesn’t need to be connected to anything in order to work.”

“Wow,” Steve breathed. He would’ve thought she was pulling his leg if he hadn’t received a call himself on a cell phone that morning. “And what about the other device I found on my desk? It had keys with letters on them like a typewriter, but it didn’t look anything like a typewriter.”

“That was probably a computer,” Diana said, looking like she was thoroughly enjoying herself. “I think this is karma for when I didn’t understand anything about your society and you had to explain it all.”

“Probably,” Steve agreed. “So what does a computer do?”

“Oh, lots of things. You can type just like a typewriter, but it’s much easier and faster. You can also use it to listen to music or watch movies, but the main function is to use the internet.”

“What’s the internet?”

Diana laughed again. “We’re going to have a lot of fun this afternoon.”

* * *

Steve woke the next morning to find Diana already awake, snuggling up against him and smiling at him. They hadn’t done anything but sleep that night—both had agreed to take their relationship slow for now since they had so much to catch up on and so much time available to them—but even just falling asleep in her arms had been the best feeling in the world. And to Steve they’d only been apart for about a day; he couldn’t even imagine how it must have felt to her, being with him again after ninety-nine years of mourning.

“Good morning,” he mumbled sleepily, leaning in to give her a peck on the lips.

“Good morning,” she said. “I’m surprised you didn’t stay up all night on YouTube.”

Steve’s face lit up. “I can’t believe you can watch all those—what are they called?”

“Videos.”

“I can’t believe you can watch all those videos on that small little rectangle. It’s amazing!”

“Mankind can be pretty amazing,” Diana said, laughing at his excitement. “That’s one of the things I’ve come to admire most about you over the years, how creative and inventive you are.”

“You still need to tell me about everything that’s happened since the war,” Steve reminded her.

“Oh, that’ll take quite a while. Maybe I should sign you up for a college history class online.”

Steve’s jaw dropped. “You can go to _college_ on the line?”

“Online. And yes, you can do just about anything online.”

“Whoa,” he said in amazement. He didn’t even mind that Diana kept laughing at him; he remembered how _he’d_ felt showing her around London, taking so much joy from the childlike wonder she found in things that seemed mundane to him.

“So, are you going to work on Monday?” Diana teased a minute later.

Steve groaned. “I don’t even know where I work or what my job is. How do I even have a job if I was dead until yesterday?”

“Zeus must have tried to integrate you back into the world as seamlessly as possible so that it wouldn’t seem like you just appeared out of nowhere one day,” Diana reasoned. “Giving you a job and a place to live and neighbors who remembered you as having lived there for years.”

“I guess that makes sense. But I’ll probably have to quit the job until I’m better adapted to all the—the cell phones and the internets and everything.”

“Internet. There’s just one.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m just trying to make sure you don’t say these things in front of other people and clue them in to the fact that you were born over a hundred years ago. That would raise some awkward questions.”

“Hmm, good point.”

They snuggled quietly for another few minutes, and then Diana said softly, “You know, when I woke up this morning I almost thought—I was scared I was going to wake up and yesterday would have all been a dream. I was scared I’d wake up and you’d be gone. Because I always dreamed that you’d come back, especially during the first few years. I’d dream you were with me again and we were so happy, and then I’d wake up and you were still gone.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen this time,” Steve said firmly. “I’m really here this time. I’m here to stay. I’m never going to leave you again, Diana, not until I die of old age when I’m ninety, and even then I’m never going to leave you, not really. I swear to you.”

Diana smiled at him, her eyes swimming with tears yet again (they’d both been doing quite a bit of crying throughout the past twenty-four hours). “I love you, Steve.”

“I love you too.”

They shared another long, lazy kiss, and then they fell into contented silence once more.

“So,” said Steve at last, “what do you say we wake up and have breakfast and read the newspaper and _not_ go to work?”

Diana beamed, and Steve marveled for what felt like the thousandth time at how _beautiful_ she was. “That sounds perfect.”


End file.
